Helpful Technical Information
Helpful Technical Information
E-mail Information
Every user in Educator receives an e-mail address that is associated with their username. You received your username and password when you filled out the "Sign Up" form on the RCC Virtual Campus (www.virtualrandolph.org). Your e-mail address in Educator is username@educator.virtualrandolph.org and you access the account by clicking the E-mail main-link in Educator. While your Educator account can receive e-mail from outside your course (Internet sources), your Send Message and Reply options are limited to people within your course(s).
The e-mail address you supplied on the "Sign Up" form on the RCC Virtual Campus homepage is still extremely important. If your "Sign Up" e-mail address changes you need to update account information in two places:
1) Go to the Virtual Campus homepage and use the "Edit Your Account" link to change your information. Your valid e-mail account (outside of Educator) is considered your "lifeline" to the Virtual Campus.
2) Edit your e-mail address in your profile information of each online course. The "Modify Profile" sub-link is located under the "Grades/Profile main-link". This provides your instructor with an alternate e-mail address other than the one in Educator.
In addition, most public e-mail account services (i.e. Yahoo, MSN Hotmail, etc.) have account size limits. If an arriving e-mail exceeds your limit, the e-mail may be rejected. If you use one of these services for your "lifeline" e-mail address, you need to login periodically to delete unwanted e-mail (sends to trash folder) and then empty the trash folder. Also be aware that periodic login is required by most public services to keep the account active.
Recommended Browsers
We recommend the use of Netscape 7.1 or Mozilla 1.2.1 for everyone with one exception. Students taking Math courses online will need to use Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher in combination with a special MathType plugin to view equations. The plugin can be obtained free of charge at the MathType website.
Important Browser Settings
Regardless of which browser you use, your browser needs to be set to get a fresh copy of the page from the internet source each time the page is accessed. The nature of many things you do in online courses require that you enter information on the page and then click the Submit button to save those changes. If your browser setting is not correct, it will seem that the information is not being changed when you Submit it. On your personal computer, you will only need change this setting once unless you install an updated version of your browser. To set this important option in your browser, follow the steps below.
To set the option in Mozilla or Netscape:
Click Edit on the menubar.
Click Preferences.
Click the + mark (triangle widget in newer versions) beside Advanced.
Click Cache.
Click the "Everytime I view the page" option.
Click the Apply button, if there is one.
Click the OK button.
To set the option in Microsoft Internet Explorer:
Click Tools on the menubar.
Click Internet Options.
Click the General tab, if necessary.
In the Temporary Internet Files section, Click the Settings button.
Click the "Every visit to the page" option.
Click the Ok button.
Click the OK button.
Click the "Create and Upload File" link on the left to proceed with the Icebreaker.
